The second piece Obama wants is to shrink the social insurance safety net. He’s wanted this since forever anyway, since at least 2006 by my count, when he was one of Wall Street’s favorite freshman senators (that’s Robert Rubin he’s saying “Hi Bob” to). He’d really like to get at Social Security — his 2011 offer to Boehner included that piece — but recent reaction to that part has made it toxic (thank you, progressives!).

So he’s making a run at Medicare.

… then any cut to any of the big three programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — will do, will start the FDR-betrayal ball rolling.

Reid, fresh off a phone call with the president, carefully steered clear of answering questions about his reaction to Obama’s reported endorsement of “chained CPI,” a Social Security calculation that would reduce the size of future benefits, on KNPR’s State of Nevada this morning.

Instead, he focused on his willingness “to look at ways we can make Medicare more effective.” But Reid and Obama have agreed for a while that Medicare, the government’s health insurance program for seniors, can be poked and prodded for more savings. They have not, historically, seen eye to eye on proposals to alter Social Security.

Reid looks like he’s a Social Security hero, and good on him for that. If so, prepare for the benefit-cuts ground to shift again, to Medicare.

Medicaid7. Shifting costs to the states by any means, such as “federal blended rate,” etc.

Read on for the detail, why each of the above cuts is bad.

Why each of these benefit cuts matters

Here’s the detail on each of these benefit attacks — what each one is, why each is bad.

Social Security

Raising the retirement age and the “earliest eligibility age”. Right now you can retire with some benefits at 62 and full benefits at 67. Simpson-Bowles, the Obama-appointed Catfood people, want to raise the full age to 69 and the early eligibility age to 64.Daniel Marans, who works at SocialSecurityWorks.org, reminds me via email:

Means-testing — reducing earned benefits for the “wealthy.”There are two problems with this. First, you’d have to cut benefits for people earning less than $50,000 per year to get any real savings. And second, converting Social Security to welfare is Goal One of the kill-it crowd, ’cause you know what we do to welfare in this country, don’t you? We kill it. More here.

Increasing the Part B premiums. This is a bad idea on two counts.Right now, the government subsidizes Medicare Part B premiums, according to an income-adjusted sliding scale. Income-adjusted premium support is already a form of means-testing — as noted above, a very bad idea. Changing this scale would be even worse, since half of Medicare beneficiaries had incomes below $22,000 a year in 2010.

Increasing cost-sharing. This means paying less out of Medicare’s pocket for treatment, making you pay more. Gouging the elderly to save a view federal bucks. This is the opposite of what the program was designed to do.

Medicaid

Shifting costs to the states. Anything that saves federal dollars by making states pay more will hurt recipients. Period.

The most recent proposal came in 2011 with Obama’s proposal of a “federal blended rate” for state reimbursement for Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program — yep, saving money on the backs of children). The detail is here, but there’s a bottom line.

Medicaid isn’t sexy. It’s wonky from the first sentence. It’s easier to cut since it looks from the outside the most like welfare — you know, it goes to poor people and all.

But it’s a cut, it will likely cause needless deaths, and it needs to be ring-fenced like the rest of these vulnerabilities — these doors through which the “deficit hawks” will use to get at the chickens. Medicaid may be the last of the hens at risk — our foxy friends will go after bigger, more symbolic prize first. But if they have to, they’ll take the scalp they can get, and that may be Medicaid.

Like a fox, Obama is circling all three social insurance programs; if a door to one is closed, he tries another. Our job — recognize that each door above is a proxy for all of them, and guard all seven.

Class War Kitteh on the “Rich and the Rest”

The Rich, lead by their One Percent Hero, are assaulting full-on the weak and the oppressed — the cogs, the cast-off, the castaway old. Class War Kitteh has your back.

You need to have your own back as well. It’s a war, a real one, and no one can sit back. We’re winning — let’s keep it that way.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

The second piece Obama wants is to shrink the social insurance safety net. He’s wanted this since forever anyway, since at least 2006 by my count, when he was one of Wall Street’s favorite freshman senators (that’s Robert Rubin he’s saying “Hi Bob” to). He’d really like to get at Social Security — his 2011 offer to Boehner included that piece — but recent reaction to that part has made it toxic (thank you, progressives!).

So he’s making a run at Medicare.

… then any cut to any of the big three programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — will do, will start the FDR-betrayal ball rolling.

Reid, fresh off a phone call with the president, carefully steered clear of answering questions about his reaction to Obama’s reported endorsement of “chained CPI,” a Social Security calculation that would reduce the size of future benefits, on KNPR’s State of Nevada this morning.

Instead, he focused on his willingness “to look at ways we can make Medicare more effective.” But Reid and Obama have agreed for a while that Medicare, the government’s health insurance program for seniors, can be poked and prodded for more savings. They have not, historically, seen eye to eye on proposals to alter Social Security.

Reid looks like he’s a Social Security hero, and good on him for that. If so, prepare for the benefit-cuts ground to shift again, to Medicare.

Medicaid7. Shifting costs to the states by any means, such as “federal blended rate,” etc.

Read on for the detail, why each of the above cuts is bad.

Why each of these benefit cuts matters

Here’s the detail on each of these benefit attacks — what each one is, why each is bad.

Social Security

Raising the retirement age and the “earliest eligibility age”. Right now you can retire with some benefits at 62 and full benefits at 67. Simpson-Bowles, the Obama-appointed Catfood people, want to raise the full age to 69 and the early eligibility age to 64.Daniel Marans, who works at SocialSecurityWorks.org, reminds me via email:

Means-testing — reducing earned benefits for the “wealthy.”There are two problems with this. First, you’d have to cut benefits for people earning less than $50,000 per year to get any real savings. And second, converting Social Security to welfare is Goal One of the kill-it crowd, ’cause you know what we do to welfare in this country, don’t you? We kill it. More here.

Increasing the Part B premiums. This is a bad idea on two counts.Right now, the government subsidizes Medicare Part B premiums, according to an income-adjusted sliding scale. Income-adjusted premium support is already a form of means-testing — as noted above, a very bad idea. Changing this scale would be even worse, since half of Medicare beneficiaries had incomes below $22,000 a year in 2010.

Increasing cost-sharing. This means paying less out of Medicare’s pocket for treatment, making you pay more. Gouging the elderly to save a view federal bucks. This is the opposite of what the program was designed to do.

Medicaid

Shifting costs to the states. Anything that saves federal dollars by making states pay more will hurt recipients. Period.

The most recent proposal came in 2011 with Obama’s proposal of a “federal blended rate” for state reimbursement for Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program — yep, saving money on the backs of children). The detail is here, but there’s a bottom line.

Medicaid isn’t sexy. It’s wonky from the first sentence. It’s easier to cut since it looks from the outside the most like welfare — you know, it goes to poor people and all.

But it’s a cut, it will likely cause needless deaths, and it needs to be ring-fenced like the rest of these vulnerabilities — these doors through which the “deficit hawks” will use to get at the chickens. Medicaid may be the last of the hens at risk — our foxy friends will go after bigger, more symbolic prize first. But if they have to, they’ll take the scalp they can get, and that may be Medicaid.

Like a fox, Obama is circling all three social insurance programs; if a door to one is closed, he tries another. Our job — recognize that each door above is a proxy for all of them, and guard all seven.

Class War Kitteh on the “Rich and the Rest”

The Rich, lead by their One Percent Hero, are assaulting full-on the weak and the oppressed — the cogs, the cast-off, the castaway old. Class War Kitteh has your back.

You need to have your own back as well. It’s a war, a real one, and no one can sit back. We’re winning — let’s keep it that way.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.